Sighting for October 26, 2020

Today, started cloudy but then the sun and the butterflies came out. There were some cloudy periods, winds 7-10 MPH, temps 70. Mid morning, the Monarch numbers started increasing, continuing to build through the day. One lantana bush had over 2 dozen Monarchs nectaring. Mexican Sage in the back yard had at least 18 Monarchs on it. They were gracefully lifting up in clouds when the wind would pick up a little. A friend stopped by and helped me count Monarchs and we stopped counting at just over 100 of them. Exciting for me also was 4 and probably 5 Long-tailed Skippers in the yard with 3 in the front gardens and 2 in the back gardens. Only 1 had both long tails, others had partial tails but the sides varied and the last had no tails. There were 3 LTS in my field of vision at once in the front yard while 2 other people were visiting. Fiery Skippers were also very present with 7 counted in one small space of 3 ft by 6 ft and a total of 15 for the gardens. Most were male as is usually the case. Missing was Ocola Skipper. Another mint fresh Black Swallowtail was here also. Black Swallowtail , American Lady, Brazilian Skippers caterpillars continue as do several Spicebush Swallowtail chrysalises.